


The Body

by therev



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-19 01:21:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4727420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therev/pseuds/therev
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McCoy's consciousness is transferred into an android body after a fatal accident. Spock helps him  remember the man he used to be. (Now with a third and final chapter!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Technically character death but not really. TOS Characterization.

The body entered the room on its own power, though M'Benga and Chapel guided it by each arm. It was dressed in black, not blue. It did not smile in recognition of anyone or anything.

"The doctor does not blink," Spock noted. He looked at the captain, who seemed to be unable to say anything at all.

"The android body has no need for blinking, Commander," M'Benga said, and sat McCoy's body down heavily onto a med bay table.

"The humans among the crew will find it unsettling," Spock suggested.

McCoy regarded Spock for the first time. His eyes were the wrong color blue. "It is not logical to perform a function which is not required at the expense of my limited power supply."

The room was quiet but for the hum of the ship.

"That's… not McCoy," Jim said at last.

M'Benga stepped between McCoy and Jim, as if the statement presented some threat to his patient.

"I assure you, Captain," he said, "Dr. McCoy's mind resides in this body. However, it will take time for the neural network to completely process his consciousness."

Spock understood. "I believe Dr. M'Benga is saying that Dr. McCoy's mind is functioning too logically and efficiently to emulate his prior human characteristics." He studied McCoy, the blank face, waiting for the usual reaction to a remark on human inefficiency, but none came.

"How long?" Jim asked, his voice heavy with sorrow.

"It's hard to say," M'Benga said. "It will depend greatly on his interaction with others. He can work in med bay with myself and Nurse Chapel on our shifts, but he will require observation at all times, at least in the beginning."

Jim rubbed a hand against his thigh, bit at his lip just a little. He stared at M'Benga and then at Spock, unwilling to look at McCoy.

"I shall observe him during my unoccupied hours," Spock said at last. "No doubt the transition will be interesting. Perhaps he might recharge during gamma shift."

Jim sighed and nodded. "Thank you, Spock," he said, and spared a glance at the body that looked like his old friend, then left the room.

"That was Captain James Tiberius Kirk," McCoy said and everyone turned to look at him.

"That's right," M'Benga encouraged. "You see, Mr. Spock, he has memories, but they are, for now, only facts, or visuals, like knowing all of the words in a book, even understanding the practical meaning of each sentence, but not appreciating the story as a whole, and certainly having no response, particularly no emotional response."

McCoy turned his head to regard nurse Chapel. There was a slight hum, a whirring sound, but no recognition on his face. Chapel smiled down at him and reached out to smooth his hair.

"I cannot help but observe," Spock said, "that what the captain said may in fact be true, for in the absence of emotions for someone as dependent on them as Dr. McCoy, how is he to be himself at all, and not simply a receptacle for the doctor's memories?"

Chapel's fingers brushed against the doctor's forehead. She touched his cheek. "That will come, Mr. Spock," she said, her eyes watery.

"Or at least that is the theory," M'Benga added, and Spock was glad that the captain had already left. "In the meantime, you might find him refreshingly logical, Commander."  
___

Of all the alien life and hostile entities, flora and fauna alike, which they had encountered during their mission, it had been a simple rock slide which had broken the doctor's body beyond repair, down on the surface of a peaceful but, they now knew, geologically unstable planet. Two security members had died in the landslide, and McCoy had all but done so when Spock had found him, his mind crying out from beneath the dust and rocks even as he lay dying.

It was an inelegant solution, Spock thought, this android sitting across from him which looked much like the doctor but not quite. It reminded him of Captain Pike before his return to Talos IV, trapped in that hulking wheelchair, lights flashing yes and no. He saw the same expression in McCoy's wrong-colored, unblinking gaze. Perhaps the doctor's new body was not so vulgar or restrictive, but it was, nonetheless, a parody of life.

"Checkmate," McCoy said, and smiled. He had learned the action quickly, but Spock could not be sure if he understood the meaning.

"Excellent, Doctor. You have beaten me without fail. Clearly you are the superior player."

McCoy still smiled, looking far too young, with his new skin and simulated musculature. He did not gloat over his victory, he did not mention the benefits of intuition over logic, he did not blink.

"Would you like to play again, Mr. Spock?"

"Thank you, Doctor. Yes."  
___

"Could it be done?"

Scotty considered the question. "Ay, it can be done, Mr. Spock, but I'm an engineer not a surgeon. This is more a job for Dr. McCoy and, well, as he's the patient, I don't see how --"

"But you are capable of designing the mechanism and programming?"

"Aye, of course."

"Then that is the only response I require from you, Mr. Scott. Please proceed under my order."  
___

The body was booted up, lying on the med table it whirred quietly to life. Blue eyes inspected each face which hovered over it: nurse Chapel, Dr. M'Benga, Spock. They stopped. They blinked.

Nurse Chapel gave a soft gasp. Several seconds passed, still with those eyes on Spock and Spock waited.

McCoy blinked again.

Dr. M'Benga smiled hugely, still in his scrubs, a blue hydraulic fluid smeared across the white expanse of them.

"I believe it was a success, Mr. Spock."

"Obviously," Spock said.

"May I sit up now?" McCoy asked.

That evening at chess McCoy blinked, on average, 10.3 times per minute, below typical for humans but acceptable.

"Why was it so important to you?" McCoy asked. "It serves no purpose to this body."

Spock considered the board and counted three more blinks. "It is a human trait, and indeed a trait of many species. Our personalities are not merely memories stored in a databank, but the product of all internal and external information, stimulation, and form."

"So the more this body looks and feels like my former self, the more I will become him?"

"I believe I said that, Doctor."

"That is very logical, Mr. Spock," McCoy said, and Spock looked up from the board, searching for the sarcasm he thought he heard, but McCoy's face was soft and accepting, long lashes dropping to meet pink cheeks, a fraction of a second worth of movement.

"Your move," Spock said.  
___

McCoy began performing basic crew examinations three standard months after becoming a synthetic humanoid. M'Benga was his first patient, a trial run that went flawlessly. Christine was next, and another successful exam. Spock was third, a wrench in the works, M'Benga had called him, a test of the doctor's understanding of variables inherent to xenobiology.

Spock watched McCoy's hands, waving the scanner over his body, skin smoother than it should have been but Spock was growing used to that. He watched his mouth, set at a nondescript rest normal, no frown of consternation, watched his eyes as he consulted the viewscreen over Spock's head, still the wrong color.

McCoy touched his shoulder, simulated skin too cold. The doctor had always had warm hands.

"All readings normal," McCoy announced.

"Are you quite sure, Doctor?" Spock asked.

"Your Vulcan physique is in top form, Mr. Spock. At this rate you should live another two-hundred years." He smiled and put away his instruments.

Later, Spock asked M'Benga if he had supplemented McCoy's memory with xenobiological data, particularly that of a Vulcan.

"It would be easy to do so, but I have not. He has the same knowledge now as when he… well...."

"Died?" Spock asked.

"Technically," M'Benga admitted.

"The human use of that word astonishes me. It is either a fact or it is not."

"Well, he did die... and yet he is not dead."

Spock crossed his arms and ignored the comment. "Considering that you did not supplement his knowledge of Vulcans, I must surmise that the doctor has, during our acquaintance, been exaggerating his ignorance of my physiology, and now no longer finds pleasure in using such a farce as a source of derision."

"I don't think McCoy ever meant to demean you, Mr. Spock, just to…" M'Benga paused, and did not complete the thought. "But the rest I would say is probably correct. Tell me, would you prefer that he remark on your differences?"

As Spock considered the question, McCoy stepped into M'Benga's office. He smiled kindly at Spock.

"My preferences are neither relevant nor your concern, Doctor." Spock said.  
___

Stars littered the black, pinpoints of light, some reddish, some blue, some yellow-white, expanding far beyond the limits of the observation deck window. In the reflection in the glass, Jim appeared behind Spock.

"Searching for something in particular, Spock, or just enjoying the view?"

"Merely considering infinity, Captain," Spock said without turning.

"Merely," Jim said and laughed softly. He sat on the arm of a chair. "I hear you've been instructing certain crew members to refuse their medical examinations with Dr. McCoy."

Spock turned. "Not refuse, Captain, only to be uncooperative at first."

"And why would you do that?"

"Doctor McCoy requires the stimulus. He resists engaging in disagreements with me, in spite of my attempts. I felt that another human might arouse what I could not."

Jim smirked, eyes glinting mischievously in the low light. "Well you can consider it a success. He called Chekhov a communist and asked O'Reilly if he couldn't hear past the potatoes in his ears. Any more and I might have to censure him for harassing my crew."

"I am certain that the doctor would find that most stimulating. He asks about you often, Captain."

Jim's smile faltered. He picked at something in the fabric of his pants, though Spock could see nothing there. "That might… I needed more time, Spock."

"I mourn with thee," Spock said, and Jim looked up at him.

"You do, don't you?"

Spock turned back to the window, crossed his arms. In the reflection, Jim stood and stepped toward him.

"Spock--"

"I formally request that Dr. McCoy be considered for the landing party on the planet tomorrow," Spock said and Jim stopped. "Dr. M'Benga has already expressed a need for additional time working in his office, and the exposure to different cultures and atmospheres will no doubt benefit Doctor McCoy's--"

"Alright," Jim said, waving a hand in Spock's direction. "No need for an explanation. If you feel he is fit for duty, then I approve the request." He turned away from Spock but did not yet leave the room. "I suppose it's time we all moved on, accept him as he is now…. Even you, Spock."

Jim left then, Spock watched him in the reflection in the glass, the stars dimming as the shape of him receded. After a few moments another shape appeared, moving carefully, and came to stand very near to Spock's shoulder.

"Did you speak to the Captain, Mr. Spock?" McCoy asked softly, although Spock could not have guessed the reason for the lower volume, perhaps the dim lights of the room.

"I have, Doctor," Spock said and turned to him. "You shall be part of tomorrow's landing party."

McCoy smiled, his eyes unnaturally, digitally bright. "Thank you, Mr. Spock." He rocked on the balls of his feet, bouncing slightly, a motion so familiar that Spock nearly overlooked its significance.

"Dr. McCoy," Spock said, and McCoy waited patiently, still, blinking at regular intervals, but otherwise without unnecessary movement.

After a long silence, McCoy spoke, even more softly. "Something the matter, Spock?"

Spock waited, then said, "Shouldn't you be charging, Doctor?"  
___

On the planet surface, Spock scanned various flora as Jim played the politician. He kept McCoy in sight, watched as he wandered from flower to rock to tree, encountering each as if it were a friend whose name he had just remembered. Behind one such tree he found a native child who squealed at being discovered, and other children appeared from behind other trees or rocks and surrounded McCoy, and Spock too, when Spock came to see if he could be of assistance. One child, an orange-faced female, clambered easily onto McCoy's back, twittering in a language none of them could understand, not even Uhura, without the universal translators, but McCoy seemed to know the gesture if not the words, and began trotting about like a Terran equid. The children's high-pitched laughter rose and fell like birdsong, and McCoy let them each climb up in turn.

The commotion gathered the attention of the planet elders, diplomats, and Jim, who all stood smiling or trying to calm or control the children. 

On the ship again, after beaming up, Jim clapped McCoy on the shoulder and smiled.

"Good to have you back, Bones."

McCoy smiled in return, soft and uncertain, and fluttered his lashes in what Spock felt was an accurate display of modesty.  
___

In Jim's increased presence, Dr. McCoy progressed more quickly, especially in the use of idioms and extreme facial expressions, and other distinctly human characteristics which Spock had not been able to provide. It was seven standard months before Spock heard the doctor's laugh again, joking with Jim, watching Jim and Spock play chess. McCoy had told Spock forty-two standard days prior that he did not, in fact, enjoy playing the game.

It was one-point-seven-three standard years before McCoy performed his first surgery as an android, his own hesitation being the cause for the delay. He had grown distrustful of his synthetic body where the lives of the crew members were concerned. Spock wondered if this was a reflection of some personnel's and alien entities' reactions to learning that McCoy was more machine than man. Spock had witnessed the doctor being spoken of as if he were not in the room, told by one petulant ensign to 'check his circuits', and mistaken as a pleasure bot by an Andorian ambassador. Even Jim, for all the warm looks and encouragement, did not like to touch the doctor's cool skin.

However, when Spock asked, McCoy stated that his reluctance was due to a concern over unexpected malfunction of the body which might endanger a patient's life.

"Understandable, Doctor, but consider that even the captain, with his entirely human body, risks physical malfunction during every mission or procedure, and must simply trust his instrument to perform correctly, together with his own intuition and the assistance of medical personnel like yourself, who clear him for duty. For that is the nature of bodies of all beings, to be used and to be risked and to be cared for."

McCoy smiled, the sheepish kind he had first displayed one-hundred-and-sixty-three standard days prior, standing in Spock's quarters early gamma shift. He often visited Spock there before his recharge cycle.

"I suppose you're right. It's just…" he held up his hands, studying the smooth, unlined palms, "lives are at stake. Real lives."

"Is that not the dilemma of all surgeons, all healers, Doctor?"

McCoy pursed his lips, raised a brow, and blinked, considering Spock's statement with an expression so perfectly human and so like the doctor as he had been. 

"Moreover," Spock said, "your statement implies that you do not count yourself among those 'real lives'. I submit that you are grossly mistaken."

"Imagine that," McCoy said, and smiled crookedly, "you thinking I'm wrong about something."

Spock inclined his head in agreement. "Perhaps, Doctor, if you would endeavor to be less frequently incorrect, then I might not be compelled to identify your error."

McCoy rocked on his heels. "What fun would that be, Mr. Spock?"  
___

Six months and three standard days before the end of their five-year mission, the Enterprise entered orbit around Vulcan. For two days Jim and Spock beamed down on Federation business, sat in long meetings in chairs Jim found distressingly uncomfortable. 

At the end of the second day, McCoy beamed down on invitation of Spock's mother, and they dined together at Spock's childhood home, where Jim found the furniture to be so comfortable that he fell asleep sitting up during after-dinner drinks, leaning heavily upon Spock on the sofa. Spock's mother quieted Spock when he attempted to rouse the captain, while his father, sitting near Dr. McCoy, was too engrossed to be offended by the social faux pas.

There came with age, Spock noted, for humans and even, or perhaps especially, for Vulcans, a certain lack of propriety which had his father in its grip. He asked after McCoy's experiences as a synthetic life form, how did he process physical and emotional data, did he dream, did he ever perceive phantom sensations of his previous body, could he indeed feel pain at all, and other questions which Spock had not dared ask.

"He saves your life and this is how you thank him, husband?" Spock's mother said, though she was smiling, and McCoy had been polite and answered what he could. He had not eaten at dinner and he did not drink then; he had no need to do either, yet he reached more than once for a glass and Spock watched his father watch the doctor.

"I like your family, Spock, especially your mother," McCoy said later, once again in Spock's quarters.

"You have met them before. Do you not recall?"

"I remember," McCoy sat in a chair and crossed his arms over his chest, his legs at the ankle, "but it's not the same as experiencing it, if that makes sense."

Spock sat in an opposite chair. "That is logical, Doctor."

"I remember my family like that, too," McCoy said, looking above and beyond Spock, retrieving the relevant bits of data. "I remember Jocelyn's face, our wedding. I remember holding Joanna for the first time. I even remember... well..." He looked at Spock with the sort of smile that used to color the doctor's cheeks a little pinker.

"Perhaps you will have those experiences again, if in different ways."

McCoy rolled his eyes. "There's no way I'm fathering another child, Spock, unless I build it out of scrap parts." He tapped his fingers over his arm, thinking. "But I would like to see Joanna once the mission is up. She knows what I am. Perhaps a robot father is at least as acceptable as an absent one."

"Is it wise to travel the planet on your own, Doctor?"

McCoy smirked. "You and I both know M'Benga cleared me from observation a long time ago."

"Yes," Spock said simply, and crossed his arms.

There was a shift in the air, a whir of almost-silent mechanical parts, and McCoy sat a little straighter. "You know, I remember the day I died, too."

Spock held that bright blue gaze and after some time said, "The rock slide?"

"Before it," McCoy said, blinking slowly, softly, "and after it."

"Indeed," Spock said, as if this answered some question. He shifted in his seat.

"I made a confession to you that day, and you said you would consider it. Then I went and got myself killed and you held onto my life force, tucked it in the place between those pointed ears," he punctuated this with a touch to his own temple, "and kept me safe."

"It was the logical course of action."

McCoy watched him until Spock began to grow inexplicably uncomfortable, then the doctor smiled and stood. 

"Do you mind if I recharge here again, Mr. Spock?"

Spock stood as well, drifting closer to McCoy, feeling as if the ship had listed suddenly in the opposite direction. "You are always welcome, Doctor."  
___

Two years, three months, and seven standard days after McCoy became a synthetic humanoid, he stood on Earth, on his daughter's doorstep, and hugged her with his cool flesh and smiled at her with wrong-colored eyes, and she cried, and he would have but he could not.

Spock stood beside him, hands clasped behind his back.

Jim had been surprised when Spock mentioned accompanying McCoy to Earth. 

"You're not leaving the fleet?"

"No, Jim, and neither is the doctor."

"And you're not, by any chance, dropping him off at Talos IV?"

Spock had scowled, or near enough to it that Jim had apologized and wished them a safe journey.

On Joanna's doorstep, McCoy said his name.

"This is my good friend, Spock," he told Joanna. "He doesn't shake hands, darlin', and he might not smile but he saved your old man's life and I owe him everything."

Spock felt his cheeks grow warm, and Joanna, who had exactly the right color eyes, hugged him around the neck and kissed his cheek and behind her McCoy was laughing when Spock caught his gaze.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> McCoy has grown accustom to his android body (mostly). So has Spock (mostly). This is what happens after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few folks wanted to read more of these two and so did I. This picks up just days after the first chapter ends. The original story can still stand alone if you prefer. Also, as far as I know there's no evidence in canon that humans have a katra which can be transferred, but let's pretend. Power of love and all that.

Spock stepped carefully, the earth soft and mossy, the terrain sometimes steep. A fog hung low to the ground, a white-grey mist that seemed to droop from the trees as damp branches and underbrush darkened Spock's shoulders, the hem of his robes. When the ground became too wet he stopped, looked up through a break in the evergreens, toward a distant sound, to a sky so pale blue it was almost white, as a shuttlecraft passed over, headed toward the bay.

It was two years, three months, and nine standard days after Dr. Leonard McCoy had become a synthetic lifeform, and Spock walked the hills behind Joanna McCoy's home.

That morning McCoy had boarded a private shuttle which had carried him to the Daystrom Institute. Dr. Richard Daystrom had requested that McCoy come alone, as was his prerogative as the man who had designed McCoy's body and the neural network which now held the doctor's mind. It was not until the doctor had left, however, that Spock realized just how long it had been since he had not been in close proximity to the doctor, or at least known his relative safety level and location (the secure and limited confines of the USS Enterprise). 

By midday the fog had burned off, and in the afternoon McCoy returned on the same shuttle which had taken him away.

"How was your meeting, Doctor?" Spock asked as they stood in the kitchen. He was chopping vegetables for dinner when McCoy leaned against the counter beside him, still wearing the jeans and battered leather jacket he had left in that morning. The worn civilian clothes only accentuated the unnatural perfection of the doctor's features.

"Well enough," he said. "They downloaded the new data, gave me a software update for color recognition. Apparently, I couldn't see some shades of purple before. I'd never noticed."

"Is that all?" Spock said. "Those are tasks which can be completed remotely, as we have done in the past. I wonder why Dr. Daystrom should have asked you to come so far, and indeed to come alone."

"Well, you'd have to ask him," McCoy said, his voice edging on irritation. "I think he wanted to see me in action, not just on a vidscreen." 

Spock said nothing to that. Lying did not come naturally to McCoy's personality matrix. In fact, even before the digital transfer Spock had never found him convincing. 

The house was quiet but for the sound of Spock chopping and the tick of a clock, and the almost constant hum of overhead aircraft so close to Starfleet. 

"Jo isn't home?" McCoy asked, reaching out to touch the frilled hem of Joanna's apron which Spock was wearing. 

Spock shook his head. 

"Good… I mean, I'd like to talk to you."

"We are currently conversing."

McCoy reached out again, this time touching Spock's hand so that Spock would look at him. He licked his lips, even though there was no moisture there. "Spock… If I were human--"

"You are human, Leonard."

"I mean if I had a human body--"

"Your body is an accurate recreation of--"

"Damnit, Spock, stop interrupting me!"

Spock shifted, adding a small amount of distance between them.

"Is this regarding your visit to the Daystrom Institute, Doctor?"

McCoy looked down, removed his hand from Spock's. "Not exactly," he said, then there was a noise in another room, Joanna arriving home with dessert and a bottle of wine. McCoy turned away from Spock, smiling at last, and when Joanna asked about Daystrom, McCoy gave her the same answers he'd given Spock, and she accepted them easily and touched her father's face and smoothed out his hair and made Spock agree to try at least one small slice of pie.  
___

The day before they left Joanna's, Joanna caught Spock alone in the room that he and McCoy had been sharing and closed the door softly behind her.

"I don't know what comes next for him," she said, "but you'll take care of him, won't you?" She looked much like her father, same eyes, same slight build. Her hair was lighter than McCoy's but Spock wondered if his would have curled at the same length.

"Your father is not my possession, Joanna."

"You mean… but I thought you two were, you know…" she struggled. "I don't know how that's even supposed to work."

"You possess your father's gift for subtlety," Spock said, "which is none, as well as his skill for assumption, which is far too great."

She shifted, narrowing her eyes, a fair approximation of McCoy's suspicion. "But you do care for him. You wouldn't have come all this way otherwise. You wouldn't touch him as much as you do." She smiled, satisfied when Spock raised a brow. That was very like her father, too. "I know a thing or two about Vulcans, Mr. Spock."

Spock stayed silent and she continued.

"I suppose I'm lucky in a way. I don't have to worry about him having a heart attack or going through something like granddaddy." She sat on the bed, hands clasped in her lap. "He will probably even outlive me."

Spock stepped closer but did not reach out to her. "While there are as many dangers inherent to mechanical life as organic, the odds of successful repair are greater. I am not, as a Terran might say, your father's keeper, however, I am his friend, and I shall endeavor to safeguard him as well as I would another."

Joanna stood, her brows forming a crooked line across her face. "Daddy was right. You're not much for comforting, are you, Mr. Spock?"

That evening they sat in Joanna's living room and she brought out an album of photographs and holographs of herself and her mother and father or sometimes, though less often, her step-father. She sat on one side of Spock and the doctor sat on the other, the differences in her human and his synthetic body temperatures difficult not to notice. 

She opened the album and laid it over Spock's knees, leaning in closer than most humans besides Jim dared, whatever she felt she knew about Vulcans, and pointed at the images and told stories of each. There was one of McCoy holding a small, pink Joanna, her face twisted in a cry as McCoy beamed with human pride. She said that was the day that she was born. In another the three of them all smiled, posing awkwardly in front of a tall tree decorated with colorful lights, Joanna perhaps three years old, and she said that was their last Christmas before the divorce. In another, a holograph, Joanna and McCoy stood in an Earth stream in Georgia, visiting grandparents, she said. They were wearing waders and holding fishing poles and Joanna looked to be thirteen and McCoy wore a strange hat. The water sparkled as it flowed past, reflecting the sun, and just before the holo looped, Joanna pulled a small fish up out of the water and McCoy gave a silent, surprised laugh.

On either side of Spock, father and daughter argued over the size and weight of the fish and whether or not it had in fact been returned to the water, and Spock watched the loop seven-point-six times before turning the page.  
___

"Rear Admiral Kirk," McCoy said, bowing to Jim as they entered Jim's quarters at the Presidio campus. 

"They haven't pinned me yet, Bones", Jim said, pouring a glass of brandy. Spock noticed that he almost poured a second, then put the other glass away. "They want to make me Chief of Operations."

"Well, congratulations," McCoy said, "but why don't you look happy about it?"

The captain wavered, almost spoke, then didn't, then took a seat in a chair. 

"Because, Doctor," Spock said instead, "Chief of Operations at Starfleet Headquarters is necessarily an Earth post. The captain will be grounded."

McCoy bounced on his heels. "There's nothing wrong with that, Jim. Safer anyway."

"Yes, you would see it that way," Jim said.

"You mean because I died up there or for some other reason?" McCoy asked but he was smiling.

Jim smirked and didn't comment on the subject of the doctor's death.

"So what are you two doing?" he asked instead, looking to Spock and then McCoy, both of them still standing. "Please, gentlemen, have a seat."

Spock sat nearest to Jim who watched him expectantly. When Spock did not answer, Jim looked to McCoy, sitting across a low table.

"Well, I," McCoy said, rubbing his chin uncertainly. The doctor had not shaved nor grown a beard for over two years. "I can't say I have any plans, Jim. There's just…" McCoy faltered. When he couldn't seem to come up with the correct answer he looked to Spock, eyes soft and too blue.

"I have long thought to return to Vulcan," Spock said, so that all attention was on him instead. "As you well know, Captain, it has been my desire for some time to complete the Vulcan ritual of kolinahr to purge all emotion." He could not see McCoy as he was turned to the captain, but there was a quiet sound from that direction. "I have decided against that course of action at this time, however, I will be returning to Vulcan for approximately eight standard months at the request of my father who wishes me to be a guest instructor at the Vulcan Science Academy, heading a course reviewing the findings of our mission, particularly those occurring in deep space."

"That's remarkable, Spock," Jim said, looking genuinely pleased, and raised his glass. 

"Why didn't you tell me?" McCoy said with a look which was new to the doctor's collection of expressions, but after a moment he slid on a smile that did not seem genuine, even apart from being mechanically produced. "That's incredible news," he said gently, and leaned over to touch Spock's shoulder, squeezing too tightly through Spock's dress uniform.

"I had not informed you," Spock said, "because I had not decided until just this moment that I should accept." 

McCoy released his shoulder and leaned back, nodding, though Spock was uncertain of what the doctor thought he understood.

"Additionally," he said, "I have been hoping that you would accompany me to Vulcan, to share any medical and xenobiological knowledge you have acquired on our journey, if you are not, as you have just indicated, otherwise engaged."

McCoy's eyes were wide with surprise. "Well," he said, and blinked, and looked from Spock to Jim.

"Well," Jim repeated, and Spock could hear the playful smile in his voice.  
___

On Vulcan, Spock stepped off of the shuttlecraft and McCoy followed closely behind. A hot breeze blew past them and the doctor struggled with the high collar of his coat.

"The heat and lack of oxygen won't bother me much but this dust might clog my auditory and ventilation ports," he said, a shadow of his most irritated self. 

"I will assist in your maintenance, Doctor," Spock said as their bags were unloaded. McCoy picked up both his and Spock's and nodded toward a few figures approaching. 

"Your father?" he asked, squinting in the hazy heat.

"Indeed," Spock said as another wind gusted through, this one stronger, pushing Spock against McCoy's shoulder, solid and unyielding. 

"Okay?" McCoy asked, both hands occupied with their bags but he moved to block the wind. Spock regained his footing, then reached out to smooth down the doctor's ruffled hair. McCoy smiled in spite of the dust, and Spock turned to greet their hosts.  
___

They shared an apartment not far from the Academy and Spock lectured most days. McCoy gave a few lectures early on, then moved on to the medical center where he demonstrated and assisted in new procedures, eager to learn as much as he taught. 

During one of the first lectures on grafting neural tissue, students began asking McCoy instead about life as a synthetic entity, just as Spock's father had done. This time McCoy would not answer their questions, and suggested they refer them instead to the research teams at the Daystrom Institute, who held much of that information as intellectual property, and returned to the topic of the cerebral cortex.

"Was I an experiment, Spock?" McCoy asked later, standing in their apartment together, speaking softly as if, perhaps, he had not wanted to ask the question.

"Your creation was certainly experimental, Doctor," Spock said. 

"No, I know that," McCoy said, shaking his head, "I mean for you. When you started," he made a strange gesture between them, "this. When you began helping me."

"Experimentation was not my intention, nor even my thought, when I chose to carry your katra."

"But later?" McCoy asked, insistent.

Spock crossed his hands behind his back, considering the question, the best way to answer it. He was finding it difficult. "There was curiosity on my behalf, I admit, and using the strictest definition of the word, in which the goal of an experiment is to verify an hypothesis, then yes, I suppose that word accurately describes my actions."

McCoy's jaw clenched, anger or disappointment, Spock did not yet know. The lights in the room were low, Spock preferred them that way, and the doctor's eyes could adjust to any lighting, but just then they seemed too dim.

"However," Spock said, before the doctor could say anything, "there was never any point at which you, yourself, were an experiment. Beings cannot be experiments, they can only be subjects, variables, controls. They can only ever be what they are, and my hypothesis was that you were, and could once again be, Dr. Leonard McCoy. In this case my hypothesis was correct."

McCoy's frown softened into a smile, though there was still an uneasiness to it.

"I suppose there are worse things to be than an hypothesis," he said.  
___

In the evenings they dined with Spock's family, and though McCoy usually sat patiently and politely as everyone else ate, sometimes he would ask their forgiveness and say that he must work on his paper instead. He had been writing extensively since they arrived on Vulcan and would not tell Spock the subject of his manuscript, however much Spock insisted that he could likely be of assistance.

On one such evening, Spock found McCoy in his mother's garden.

"There was just a little creature here, Spock. You scared it away."

Spock sat next to McCoy on a bench of hewn rock, between them lay McCoy's PADD, powered down. "Did it appear not unlike a Terran weasel?"

"Very much like, only a little scarier. Everything here is a little scarier." He smiled. The sun was setting and it colored his face darker, pinker, but his eyes still glowed that digital blue.

"The ch'kariya is a nuisance to my mother's garden; she will appreciate that I frightened it."

"Well it was damned cute for a nuisance, but then so are rabbits and deer, I guess," McCoy said, looking to the horizon. 

Out past the garden, beyond the brown and rust-colored dunes, a shuttlecraft crossed the bright red expanse of 40 Eridani A, a black shape against it, tiny lights blinking at the wings, the head, the tail. The wind in the distance whipped high, throwing sand and dust up in gauzy swirls in every shade of yellow, orange, and red. Closer, in the shadows of the dunes, the earth shifted lazily, a deep, rich purple.

"It's beautiful sometimes, isn't it?" McCoy said.

Spock did not answer, but after a while he said, "If it causes you discomfort to dine with my family, we will no longer attend the evening meal here."

McCoy looked at him, surprised. "Of course not, Spock, I wouldn't want you to miss out on spending time with your family because of me, especially now that you and your father have patched things up. I could always stay home, of course, but…" he shrugged and smiled, and turned again to face the sunset. "Sometimes even I forget what I am, especially when I'm working, or when you…" he stopped himself, then shook his head and didn't finish the thought. "But some things you just can't do when you're made of metal and wires. 

"There is far more than that to your person, Leonard."

"I know, Spock," he said, and waved the comment away. "I guess I'm lucky, right?" He tapped his chest. "Don't have to worry about the old ticker, at least."

"Your daughter said something very similar."

"You talked to Jo about me?"

"Indeed, Doctor, you are the only interest we have in common."

McCoy smiled crookedly, then broadly. "That's practically romantic for a Vulcan, Spock."

Spock watched the doctor smile, then moved McCoy's PADD from between them and shifted closer.

"You are of great interest to me, Leonard," he said, and held out his hand, a gesture more human than Vulcan.

Leonard laughed softly, almost giddy, a new sound to the doctor's matrix, and took Spock's hand, grip too cold and too strong.  
___

Later, in their apartment, McCoy kissed Spock. He had asked Spock's permission first, and when Spock said yes, McCoy ordered the lights down lower and stepped closer and, after a moment, began to laugh.

"Is this part of the custom, Doctor?" Spock asked.

"Sometimes, yeah."

"You will forgive me if I refrain."

"Sure, Spock… I don't suppose Vulcans understand nervous laughter," McCoy said, smiling, his cheeks and eyes bright in the low light. "I'd forgotten what it felt like until just now, actually." He laughed again and Spock felt at once both affection and irritation.

"Can I be of any assistance?"

McCoy straightened out his face, the mechanics of it obeying dutifully, and stepped closer again. "Well you could lean down here a little. You're too damned tall."

Spock complied, bending at the waist with his hands behind his back, and McCoy reached out, touching his shoulders, his neck, fingers cool on his jaw, lips cool on Spock's, and too stiff.

McCoy stepped away. 

"Well," he said, looking disappointed, "not really… not really the way I remembered it, I guess."

"Your mind and body do not work together in all the same ways that they used to, Doctor," Spock said, stepping into the space from which McCoy had retreated, following until they once again stood close. McCoy's eyes were cast down and he mumbled an apology, but Spock brought a hand up and asked his own permission.

"Will it work?" McCoy asked, eyeing Spock's hand, hovering near his face.

"This meld will require more effort on my part than one shared with an organic entity, but yes, Leonard, it will work."

Even as McCoy nodded, Spock placed his fingers gently into position.

"My mind to your mind," he whispered, the words ghosting over McCoy's lips, then Spock closed the distance between his body and McCoy's, between his mind and McCoy's, a sensation so familiar, like holding the doctor's katra even as his body died, or holding the doctor's hand as they watched the sunset.

After a few moments, he pulled away, and after a few more McCoy opened bright blue eyes.

McCoy smiled and rocked on his heels and said, "That's more like it."  
___

Six standard months after they arrived on Vulcan, Spock received a subspace radio message from Dr. Richard Daystrom. It was coincidence that he listened to it while McCoy was out, or while he thought McCoy was out. Daystrom's voice was urgent, but it was always urgent so this brought Spock no initial concern.

_Commander Spock, I understand that you are currently on your home planet to instruct a course at the prestigious Vulcan Science Academy. I congratulate you. However, my purpose is more pressing than congratulations. I have been attempting to contact Dr. McCoy, also stationed on Vulcan, but he has not answered my messages. As you know, he came to see me at the Institute some time ago. I wonder if he discussed our meeting with you…_

The audio paused, obviously edited, then began again.

_I hesitate to reveal details, after all even with McCoy there is doctor-patient confidentiality, however, as I know you to be his close friend, and as you were the one who first brought his case to me, I ask you to urge him to contact me, to allow me to further explain the possibilities I offer…_

Another pause, and when the audio returned it was only a brief expression of thanks and information on how he might be reached and then static.

"I thought he might contact you," McCoy said over the whisper of white noise. "I'm surprised he waited this long."

The audio stopped abruptly and Spock turned in his chair to find McCoy standing at the door of their room.

"Why will you not take his messages?" Spock asked.

"I've taken his messages, I just don't want to reply."

"What does he offer you, Leonard?"

McCoy shrugged and moved closer, sat on the arm of a chair. "Nothing much, just a human body." He gave a wry smile.

Silence stretched except for the howl of hot wind outside their window, until Spock finally said, "I am either mistaken, Doctor, and you in fact did not just say 'a human body' or I am struck with inescapable confusion. Is this not what you would want?"

"The body's not really human, Spock," McCoy said, his voice rising with irritation, "it's still mostly synthetic. Daystrom used the DNA sequence he coded into my programming along with some pretty revolutionary synthetic polymers. I'd look human and feel human, but I'd still have to charge and be maintained."

Spock waited for more, watching McCoy. "As I know this to be a desirable alternative for you," he said at last, "I must surmise that there is, as you would say, a catch."

McCoy stood and paced. "You're damned right there's a catch. The transference will require formatting of the memory, _my_ memory," he said with a pointed finger at his own chest. "The data will be backed up but Daystrom can't guarantee it won't wipe out what's been learned by the neural network since my initial boot, and this whole business starts over again."

"You mean you may lose all of yourself which has been gained since you first inhabited this body."

"I believe I just said that, Mr. Spock," McCoy said, and it should have held some humor, but it did not, and when he approached Spock it was with as much sadness and desperation as anger. "I could lose again what it is to be a person, what it feels like to laugh, or to feel anything at all." He knelt before Spock and took his hand. "I could lose this," he said, pressing Spock's palm to his face even as bright eyes slid slowly closed. 

"It is your body, Leonard, and your decision. However, whatever data may be at risk, this," he said as he caressed McCoy's cool cheek, "is not something which can be lost."  
___

On Earth, two years, eleven months, and twenty-three standard days since McCoy had become a synthetic lifeform, he and Spock walked onto a sandy Pacific beach. 

"Just in case I don't come back," he said to Spock as they sat under an oversized umbrella, Spock in black robes which the doctor had tried to coax him out of, McCoy wearing shorts and a Starfleet tee shirt and nothing else, his skin hairless and smooth and unmarked. He handed Spock his PADD.

"I've been writing everything I could remember, which is a lot considering how well this works," McCoy said, tapping his temple. "It probably won't mean any more to me than the memories will, but maybe there's something for you in it." He leaned over, bumping his shoulder into Spock's. "Anyway," he said, "I'm going swimming."

"I must warn you again, Doctor, of the dangers of exposing your body to the high salinity inherent to seawater, not to mention the threat of undercurrent, sand, and sea life."

McCoy smiled and leaned over to kiss Spock's cheek. "Yeah, I know all about your concerns over the big, scary water, but there's not much use worrying about this body today, since tomorrow I get a new one." 

Spock watched the doctor take off down the beach and into the water, watched the sun glint off of the surface, blue and then grey, and then foamy white, watched McCoy get knocked over by the breakers, and then rise again with an inhuman quickness and wave toward Spock, smiling, and though it was too far for even his ears, Spock imagined that he could hear his laughter.

He looked to the PADD in his lap, powered it on, selected the first file he found, and began to read.  
___

At the Daystrom Institute, the body was booted up, lying on the table. It wore white and its skin looked quite young but very much like human skin. As the boot process progressed, cheeks were made pinker, the chest began to rise and fall, a gentle breathing sound was audible.

The body opened its eyes, precisely the right shade of blue. They looked at nothing at first, then at the faces standing nearby: Dr. Daystrom, Dr. M'Benga, Spock. They stopped, they blinked. 

McCoy smiled.  
___

Epilogue

The turbolift doors snicked open. McCoy, Spock, and their recently demoted Captain entered.

"Now, listen here," McCoy said angrily, "there's no reason for you two to risk yourselves down on that planet when I can go instead."

Spock sighed, took a place against the wall, grasping a lift handle. "While I agree with your statement, Doctor, that you are the only life form on this vessel whose body can be replaced with reasonable ease, it does not logically follow that you should always be chosen for high or even medium-risk landing missions, particularly ones which require some level of diplomacy."

McCoy's face went red.

Jim smiled.

"Diplomacy?" McCoy said, the muscles in his neck straining. "I didn't see you worried about diplomacy when I climbed into that reactor during that Kahn business."

"A sacrifice for which we are all eternally grateful, Doctor," Spock said evenly.

McCoy lifted a pointed finger as if to continue, perhaps at a higher volume, but Jim interrupted.

"Take it easy, Bones," he said, "you're not going down for the initial meeting and that's an order. You've got an inoculation to organize once we establish good relations. You'll be plenty busy in medbay in the meantime."

McCoy clenched his jaw, blue eyes fiery, watching Spock instead of Jim as if it was somehow his fault that he was being ordered to stay, until the turbolift doors opened and he turned on his heel and left them alone.

The doors snicked shut again and Jim laughed softly. "Does he play that replaceable body card often, Mr. Spock?"

"The doctor's outbursts are, as always, chiefly motivated by his concern for our safety, and while our personal conversations cannot be of much interest to you, I admit that I am not infrequently reminded of the benefits of his synthetic life systems."

Jim smiled even wider. "I suppose he's got to have something to hold over you, after years of competition with that superior Vulcan intellect."

Spock said nothing, watching the deck lights fly by until the lift stopped and the doors snicked open. 

"At least he can't accuse you of being the computer in the relationship anymore," Jim said, laughing to himself as they headed toward the transporter room.

"Indeed, Captain" Spock said. "I do not believe that is a criticism which the doctor would now wish to make."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A supplemental chapter. McCoy's perspective from the moment he woke up in that android body to the end, plus a few memories from before. This chapter is not really integral to the story. Character death is mentioned. I think this really is the last part of this story.

His first thought with his synthetic mind had not been _where am I?_ or _who am I?_ ; there had been sufficient data for that. There had been sufficient hard data for most any question he could have asked just then, including, _how did I get here?_ and _why are my limbs so heavy?_ , because becoming an android had not been a surprise, even if he had not yet understood what it meant.

His first digitally processed thought had been that something was missing. It wasn't his body, though that was also true.

He had not been able to pinpoint the missing thing until Christine and Dr. M'Benga had walked him into the med bay aboard the USS Enterprise and he had found it standing across the room. It had not been his body he had missed, but the temporary one, where he had lived so securely, where he had been cared for until such time as a new body had been made ready, and where he had never been alone. In comparison, his new body had felt like a cold, empty room. He would have been disappointed and saddened, but he had not yet acquired the ability.

He had acquired many abilities very quickly, with Spock's assistance, gathering experiences like a collector of any rare and precious thing, for early on there had been so few. Each experience had not only brought new data, but had enhanced the memories already stored, decrypting them like a million rosetta stones, to be added to the matrix of his growing personality: an ensign's laughter, the tingle of the transporter, the peculiar weight of simulated gravity, the brush of skin against his own, the turbulence of simple and complex emotions, the soft trill of a tribble, camaraderie, desire, the sound of a heartbeat.

One memory had been replayed many times before he understood it, of himself standing in his office alone with Spock, talking about feelings he could not, at that time, yet process. He did not understand why Spock had stood very still and considered McCoy's words with a raised brow, and how, after little more than that, they had parted like a thousand other memories.

He had only really understood it while sitting at a dining table on Vulcan, watching Spock's mother and father while he did not eat, the light touch of hands, gentle bickering, the kind of looks they gave to no other member of the party. Even alone, these things would not have decoded the memory he held in his mind, except that he had looked to Spock that evening, and found Spock watching him with those dark, knowing eyes, which McCoy knew from hard memory, from new experience, and from once existing there behind them.

Everything he had not yet understood had fitted suddenly and easily into place.  
___  
The Daystrom Institute was a clean, bright place that all but hummed with the whirring of the sharpest minds in the galaxy, human, alien, and artificial. McCoy's was one among them the day that he, for the second time in his life, met Dr. Richard Daystrom. 

It was two years, three months, and ten standard days after he'd become a synthetic life form.

"I'm very grateful that you've agreed to meet with me," Dr. Daystrom said, leaning against a white table in his white-walled lab, wearing a pristine white lab coat. Leonard's efficient mind unhelpfully supplied images of padded rooms and straight jackets and he closed down that line of thinking quickly.

"Well I could hardly refuse," McCoy said, leaning against another table. "After all, I'm only standing here because of this body you made." He crossed his arms, then clasped his hands behind his back instead, trying not to seem as wary as he felt.

Daystrom stepped closer, close enough that McCoy fought the urge to step back, even though there was a table behind him. He looked older, of course, but far older than the three-odd years since McCoy had seen him on the Enterprise. He knew the toll that psychological illness could have on the body.

"You're blinking, Doctor!" Daystrom said suddenly, then backed away smiling. "My compliments to the engineer! I would have liked to have included that feature myself, but we were in quite a hurry with you."

McCoy smiled, but it must have shown his discomfort all the same.

Daystrom touched his shoulder. "Please be at ease, Dr. McCoy. I know that your memories of me may be frightening. I hope that you will allow me to provide you with first-hand data which will put them in greater perspective." He smiled and released Leonard. "At any rate, they keep a close eye on me." He glanced up at the ceiling, a line of blue lights which Leonard had noticed were in every room and hallway of the institute. They were a very familiar color. The color of his eyes.

"Come," Daystrom said, "I have something to show you."

As they walked the halls, passing through multiple security checks, Daystrom spoke of his recovery, of his initial inability to move past the failure of M5, or to continue with his work at all, thanks either to the mind-numbing medication or a simple lack of will.

"Then your Vulcan friend contacted me, told me of your unfortunate accident, requested my assistance, and I must tell you the opportunities presented were unparalleled. A most stimulating exchange."

"Yeah, Spock has that effect," McCoy said, smiling, but Daystrom continued as if he had not spoken.

"Imprinting memory engrams is nothing next to transferring an existing intelligence. The data we gather from your neural processing is expected to advance our research far beyond where we had hoped to be by this time. If only we had a Vulcan on our team permanently.… You don't suppose Mr. Spock would transfer his commission?"

"Not likely," McCoy said, and Daystrom shrugged, easily accepting the answer he must have already known.

They approached another door and a glowing red panel instructed them to stand still. They stood, waited, then a humming sound began and on the screen appeared a scan of both of their bodies, for Daystrom, bones and flesh and organs, for McCoy, metal and wire and hydraulics.

McCoy watched the screen. Daystrom watched McCoy.

"From that day to this I have found a renewed purpose, one that I hope you will share, Doctor." He spoke softly as he opened the door. From the other side shone a light even brighter, blue-white and cold, a sensation Leonard now knew more from data and inference than experience.

In the center of the room was a table, and a shape draped in a white sheet.

"You are unique and extraordinary in every way, Dr. McCoy," Daystrom said, smiling broadly. "I should like to provide you with the tools to be even more so."  
___  
The memory that McCoy had of the day that he died went like this:

He woke that morning later than usual and had coffee and toast and blackberry jam. It was not synthesized but real jam, a small jar sent to him by his daughter and he was very careful with it and ate it on days he was feeling particularly indulgent. He was feeling so that day because he had made a decision the night before.

He made his rounds in sick bay, filed some reports, had another coffee, then met Jim on the bridge and learned that they would all be heading down that afternoon to the planet surface to check for life. The computer said there was none larger than microbes but sometimes the computers were fooled. McCoy said he'd be ready, and then stepped over to the science station. Spock was bent over a screen but when he noticed McCoy he straightened.

"When you have some time, Mr. Spock, I'd like to see you in my office."

"Is something the matter, Doctor?"

McCoy smiled. Spock did not. "No, nothing like that."

Spock raised an eyebrow and seemed to consider McCoy for a long moment. "I have time now."

They left together in the turbolift, standing side-by-side, only the whir of the lift and the hum of the ship breaking the silence.

In his office, McCoy ordered the lights up to full brightness, which he never did, but if Spock knew that or noticed, he didn't mention it. Spock only stood, hands clasped behind his back, so that McCoy sat at first but then stood as well, walked around and leaned against his desk. He crossed his arms.

"I have a confession, Mr. Spock," McCoy said, because he thought Spock would appreciate him getting right to the point. Spock inclined his head with curiosity. McCoy had practiced this. He wanted to be clear. "I am physically and emotionally attracted to you."

This time Spock raised both eyebrows, and McCoy began to feel a little sick.

"This is unexpected, Doctor."

"And here I thought I could never surprise you."

"You misunderstand," Spock said, perfectly still. "The information is not new to me, however, the confession is surprising."

McCoy stood and walked around behind his desk. He kept his voice even. "I don't expect you to do anything about it, really. I've just kept it to myself for too long, and I think I was beginning to resent you for it, which I realize is illogical." He smiled gently, then continued. "I needed to clear the air, Spock. Do you understand?"

"Of course, but will you not now resent my knowing should I fail to act?"

"I suppose we'll just have to see," McCoy said. "But I hope not." He crossed his arms over his chest again and waited, long enough and quiet enough that he was beginning to think that he was supposed to say something more. Then Spock took a step forward.

"You should know first," Spock said quietly, seeming to choose his words carefully, "that the attraction is not entirely unreciprocated, however, the same reasons which have prevented me from acting upon any impulse in the past remains, chiefly our status as fellow officers, our difference in rank, and the difficulties that could arise from working together--"

"And Jim."

At this Spock looked the most surprised. "Would the captain have an objection other than those I've outlined?"

"Well… I thought you…," McCoy cleared his throat. If they were laying it all on the table he might as well. "Aren't you in love with Jim?"

Spock smiled. Not one that someone who didn't know him very well would recognize as such, but McCoy did and Spock definitely smiled.

"I do hold the captain in the highest regard, however, I am not in love with nor attracted to him."

McCoy couldn't help himself. He grinned from ear to ear. It was the best news he had heard in a long time.

"As I was saying," Spock continued, "I should like to consider the offer… assuming your confession implies an offer?"

"It does," McCoy said and clasped his hands tightly behind his back, mimicking Spock. No wonder the Vulcan did it so often. Sometimes you needed something to hold on to.

Spock nodded. "Thank you, Doctor. Is that all?"

"I sure hope so," McCoy said and took a deep breath, smiling, and Spock only inclined his head and turned and left the room.

McCoy dropped heavily into his chair, feeling a little beaten but a lot lighter. The sickness he had felt was now mixed with a strange elation. 'Not entirely unreciprocated,' Spock had said. McCoy laughed to himself softly, dimmed the lights again and tried to work.

Hours later, when the ground beneath his feet on that little planet had begun to rumble, McCoy had looked toward Spock, to see if he was okay, perhaps, or to plead for his help, he didn't remember, but he had been watching him. It was the last thing he remembered before the pain and darkness and coldness, then a touch that was not stone, and warmth, and nothing.  
___

"Well, what do you think, Spock?" McCoy asked, standing in the recovery room at the Daystrom Institute, still in a white gown as he tried out new limbs and joints. They were alone, McCoy having asked for some privacy, the blue camera lights that surrounded the room powered down to a dull grey.

It was two years, eleven months, and twenty-four standard days since McCoy had become a synthetic lifeform, and one hour, seven standard minutes since he had woken up in his new body.

Spock considered him, arched an eyebrow. 

"It is accurate."

McCoy flexed arm muscles, stood on his tip-toes, the tiles cold on his feet. The gown was open in the back and he turned and showed Spock his rear end.

"It's anatomically correct!" He said, and laughed, feeling it vibrate in his chest and throat.

Spock, to his credit, smiled also. It might have been for McCoy's sake, it might not. McCoy didn't care.

"How do you feel, Leonard?"

McCoy turned back to face him and stepped closer. "I feel pretty damned good. Glad my memories, my experience, made it through the procedure. I understand you had something to do with that."

"I merely monitored--" but Spock was cut off when McCoy stepped forward and kissed him, as hard and as wet as he'd wanted to for years, standing on his toes, shorter out of boots, arms wrapped around Spock's neck. He could feel every hair tickling him, the buttons on Spock's cloak through the cotton of the gown, he could smell Spock, taste Spock, not just as collected, catalogued data bits, but really, something almost sweet bursting across his tongue, a scent like a memory stirring real reactions, physical, not just intellectual arousal. 

"Oh boy," McCoy said when he leaned back and caught Spock blushing, and a cool palm cupped his bare buttock as Spock hummed in agreement.  
___

It had not, at first, been difficult learning how to be android when he used to be human since, upon waking in that original synthetic body, his mind had not supplied, or at least not understood, any comparison. The difficulty came later, with learning how to be human again when he used to be android. Technically, he still was one, but with the new body, no one would guess it who didn't already know, and those who did found it easy to forget.

McCoy could not forget.

It was not the limitations that reminded him, since there were very few. It was not the benefits either, although there were many. Mostly, it was Spock. Not even anything Spock did or said, but what he had done and said. That he had been able to love McCoy as a machine, and now as a man once again, and however much his body changed, however much their relationship changed, Spock's affection felt the same. McCoy knew it like a physical memory, like the sway of the ocean or the lurch of a ship going into warp.

Their relationship did change. They began to have sex. It had not been possible before, not beyond telepathic caresses, or if it had, they had agreed that it would not be satisfactory for either party. McCoy had often felt guilty, knowing the importance of sex in Vulcan culture and biology. The possibility of it had been a deciding factor when Dr. Daystrom had offered McCoy a new body, and there had followed several awkward conversations with Daystrom outlining just what he expected his body to be able to do.

Spock had been careful at first of the new body, more so even than the first. _May I touch you here? Is this pleasurable? Are you certain you are designed for this?_ He asked them all and more until McCoy thought Spock had catalogued every square centimeter, and in the end, he felt certain that Spock knew his body better than even he did. Then again, isn't that the way of all lovers?  
___

It was with some hesitation that McCoy returned to the Enterprise for a new mission with Spock, thinking that perhaps his old friends would never see him as anything but a machine, even with a perfect replica of a human body. He was wrong, of course, for they had never seen him as anything other than Dr. McCoy.

By the time they had warped out of the space dock, it had only been four standard weeks since acquiring his new body.

It was a quiet mission by the Enterprise's standards, only a year, mostly training or shuttling diplomats. McCoy made a point of mentioning this every time he spoke to Jim, stuck on Earth, even though he knew that Jim reviewed every report from her bridge crew.

"I'm beginning to think it was just your bad luck, Jim," McCoy said to him one gamma shift, "all that trouble we always got into."

Jim smirked on the other side of the comm screen and ignored the remark. "How's the captain?"

McCoy smiled, leaned back in his chair in his office, hands behind his head. "Oh fine. You know I don't think he ever has really liked command, but he's going to do his duty for king and country. Or sehlat and galaxy, something like that." McCoy paused, then, "Don't tell him I said that."

Jim shook his head. "You may know him better by now, Bones, but I still know him pretty well."

"Well, I won't fight you over it."

"Speaking of," Jim said, smiling, "a little birdie told me you two filed an application for marriage."

McCoy frowned, brows drawn together. "Spock said he wouldn't tell you. I shouldn't have trusted him where you're concerned!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jim tried to look affronted and failed. "Anyway, it wasn't Spock. But I'm sorry you didn't feel you could tell me." He did seem genuinely hurt, somewhere beneath that ever-flirtatious smirk.

"Don't be such a child," McCoy said. "We wanted to tell you in person… we were hoping… well he might not like me asking without him."

Jim's smirk morphed into a smile as wide as the screen. "I'd be honored, Bones."

McCoy felt something blossom in his chest, a warmth, a brightness. He knew it was simulated but he let it put a smile on his face. "Yeah, Spock thought you'd say that."

"So when am I warping out? I could catch a ride on the Exeter. She's headed your way in a few days if you want to get this tied up as soon as possible."

"It's not a diplomatic meeting, it's a goddamned wedding! Anyway, it's not even that. Just a few of us, nothing fancy, and _on Earth_! I want my daughter there."

"But you've got a few months left of your mission," Jim said, a little too desperate. "Can you stand to wait that long?"

"You just want an excuse to fly. You can find another one."

Jim sighed and shook his head. "That's heartless, Bones. You're spending too much time with that Vulcan of yours."

"I'd watch my mouth if I were you, James Kirk." He sat forward, gripped the table, but Jim just smiled, long enough and quiet enough that McCoy sat back, realizing he was being goaded. "Anyway," he said, "if you really want, there'll be a ceremony on Vulcan. I'm sure you can imagine what _that_ will be like, so I'll understand if you don't feel like risking your life again."

Jim's eyes widened. "I don't imagine things would go the same this time. And if I had to fight for your hand, who knows? I might win!"

"Heaven forbid," McCoy groaned and they both laughed, tapering out to silence until Jim looked overly thoughtful.

"Could you have imagined any of this when we started the mission?" Jim said wistfully. "You and Spock? Me riding a desk?"

McCoy rolled his eyes. "Stop acting like your life is over. You'll fly again, I don't doubt it. Probably manage to get yourself demoted, too."

Jim raised both eyebrows. "Say, that's not a bad idea."  
___

McCoy had started writing the day that Daystrom first offered him a more human-like body, preparing for the possible loss of memory, of experience, of all that his friends and especially Spock had taught him. When that didn't happen, he kept writing. He hadn't let Spock read it since that day on a Pacific Beach when he handed over his PADD to Spock, just in case, but he would say to Spock now and then, "I'm putting this one in the book; someday the whole galaxy's going to know you're ticklish behind your knees," or, "that'd make a nice chapter title, _Cooking with Captain Spock_ ".

The first entry in the journal started something like this:

_I have a memory of the feeling of the cool side of a pillow against my face. I have another of the sweet meat of a peach, and the juice running sticky down my arm. I have another of the ache of a wasp sting, the burn of sun exposure, the pain of love. I once read a book on what it's like to die, what some people see on the other side. I read it on a shuttle flight from Earth to Mars and thought it was hogwash. I still do. It didn't say anything about forgetting what it's like to be alive. It didn't say that sometimes, after, you might wonder if you really were._

The entry he wrote four years and seven standard days after becoming a synthetic entity read:

 _Well, hell. All together again it seems. Jim couldn't stay grounded and Spock couldn't let him go up again without him. I thought he'd keep his teaching position for a few years at least! Always chasing Jim Kirk. I'd wonder about them if I didn't know any better…. Who am I kidding? I can't pin it all on the Vulcan. I agreed to it faster than a Rigellian racing beetle._  
___

On the bridge, McCoy stood next to Spock.

"Surrender or die," said the creature on the screen. It wasn't a Klingon but it might as well have been.

Kirk gripped the arm of his chair. Spock stood a little straighter. McCoy rolled his eyes.

"Here we go again."  
___

The years passed quickly. They had done so when he was human but they seemed to fly faster now that his lifespan was theoretically infinite.

"Time is relative," Spock said one evening, one real evening on Vulcan, in their home together, in their bed, in the reddish half-dark. 

"I'm not talking about gravity or velocity and you know it," McCoy replied but he wasn't really irritated. He rested his cheek against Spock's bare shoulder.

"I do," Spock said simply. A clock ticked in the room as if to add to the conversation. It was an antique, passed down through many generations of McCoys.

"I don't want to live forever, Spock."

"It is unlikely that you will."

"I don't want to outlive all of my friends."

"That was always a possibility, even without a synthetic body. One must necessarily outlive some acquaintances and not others, unless one is--"

"I don't want to outlive you, you thickheaded Vulcan. Stop being so contrary."

A shuttle passed slowly overhead, just a soft hum somewhere out in the dark over their roof, out past the cliffs of Mount Seleya. They might have known someone aboard her. It was likely.

Spock placed his hand over McCoy's where it rested on his chest, the smoke-grey hairs there. "I can make no promises, Leonard."

McCoy smiled against Spock's skin, "Luckily, I can."

"You won't do anything foolish," Spock said, like he knew the answer.

After a while, Mccoy said quietly, "Who, me?  
___

Six years and eighty-three standard days later, McCoy wrote in his journal, "The Admiral is lost," and nothing else.  
___

The last time McCoy spoke to Dr. Richard Daystrom, it was to make a request.

"You want to make a clone?" Daystrom said, his bushy grey eyebrows rising high on his forehead.

"Hardly that," McCoy said. "Anyway, I think that word is considered offensive these days." He bounced on his heels.

"Yes, quite," Daystrom agreed, and sat there for a moment, perhaps thinking how best to say it. "I understand…" he began to say, "that is, I know that your daughter…"

McCoy swallowed thickly. Grief had not been an emotion he had wanted to know again. 

"She understood the risks of Starfleet," he said, and made himself smile. "In fact I think she lived for them. I'm not trying to replace her."

The lights overhead still glowed unnaturally blue, so different now from McCoy's eyes, the color of pale sky, too perfect a match to their original color. He was reminded of her every time he caught his own reflection in the mirror.

"I can give you the sequence, but the Institute has never dealt with, well, biological replication." Daystrom stood and shuffled over to a computer panel and began the process of copying data. "You'll need a donor," he said.

"We have one."

"Vulcan, I presume?"

McCoy nodded. "An old friend of Spock's… sort of."

Daystrom smiled. McCoy didn't think he got the joke. "They'll have a lot to live up to, the child of Dr. Leonard McCoy and Ambassador Spock."

"On the contrary, the challenge is ours," McCoy said, really smiling now. "Can you imagine anything so stubborn?"  
___

It had not been difficult being android when he used to be human, being human was the tricky part, and after a while even that had gotten pretty easy.

But unlike a human mind his synthetic one remembered everything, and above all he still remembered that first day, that first boot, walking into a cold room and not knowing himself and thinking that something was missing, and seeing Spock, remembering, even without yet understanding, the safe harbor that other body had provided. He had, even then, a memory of love, even if he didn't yet have a name for it. 

"Do you think it's real?" He asked Spock once, watching their toddler daughter spit out pureed plomeek. He scooped up a little more and offered it to her. She made a face like Spock at a Klingon pool party.

Spock raised a grey brow. He was going grey at the temples, too. So was McCoy, but it had been a programming upgrade. "Are you asking if your affection for her is real or simulated? Does it seem different than the love you felt for your first daughter? Or for me?"

"It feels the same. But those all came before."

"You're implying that an emotion is somehow different when applied to different recipients or at different times. This plomeek is still plomeek whether it is in the bowl now, on the spoon later, or in her hair for the rest of the day."

McCoy considered this. "So either it's all real or it's all simulated. I don't think your argument is helping." He dropped the spoon, somewhat agitated.

Spock sighed. "As an outside observer, I assure you that it is real. I see it, I feel it, it is known to me." He took up the spoon and scooped up more plomeek, then stared at his daughter for a long moment until she accepted it without complaint.

McCoy watched him. After a while, he smiled.

"Was there something else?" Spock asked.

"No," McCoy said. "There's nothing else."  
___

EPILOGUE

The book was published one-hundred-eighty-two years and fifteen standard days after McCoy had become a synthetic entity. There was some talk amongst academics that the Body should be brought back to Earth and put on display in the Daystrom Museum, but ultimately, as McCoy had never retired his commission, the Body still belonged to Starfleet, so it remained along with that of Spock, former Ambassador to Earth, on Vulcan. There was no chapter in the book about what happened to the Body after that. There was no chapter in the book on what happened to McCoy's consciousness in those last moments. It was assumed that the Body was simply powered down, or experienced some mechanical failure shortly after the Ambassador's passing. Afterall, the last data transfers from the Body which were sent to the Daystrom Institute had seemed damaged. Information had been missing. Such was to be expected of such outdated technology.

T'Spock Jamie McCoy had edited and compiled the book at her father's request, and having both her Earth father's humor and her half-Vulcan father's sense of propriety, it was well received by humans and Vulcans, as well as particularly popular with Andorian housewives.

The book did indeed feature a chapter titled, _Cooking with Captain Spock_ as well as: _How to Get Married on Vulcan and Live to Tell About It_ , _All My Tribbles_ , _Space Diseases: A Primer_ , and _Child Rearing According to Starfleet_. 

There was not a chapter on the Vulcan belief in Katra, or the transference thereof. There was no mention of secret planets where one might live forever in perfect youth and health. There was also nothing about Spock's ticklish knees.


End file.
